The Dec. 5 mayoral and county commissioner elections were a fight for local government leadership. However, because of the central government’s poor performance, many also viewed the elections as a confidence vote for President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration. In the elections, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) secured 12 seats, but KMT Yilan County Commissioner Lu Guo-hwa (呂國華) was defeated by 20,925 votes despite Ma’s 11 visits to Yilan before the election. If not for the government’s poor performance, the KMT would have won this seat easily.
Seven KMT mayors and commissioners were running for re-election. Most KMT mayors and commissioners were easily re-elected, partly because they were incumbents, and partly because the KMT has a tight grip on local politics. The remaining seven cities and counties already ruled by the KMT included two outlying island groups — Kinmen and Lienchiang counties — and Hualien and Taitung counties on the east coast. Traditionally, these have been the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) weakest areas.
The real battleground, then, was Hsinchu City and County and Taoyuan County. In these areas, the DPP’s candidates were chosen without adequate planning.
Four years ago, the KMT candidate for Taoyuan County, Eric Chu (朱立倫), easily defeated the DPP candidate, Cheng Pao-ching (鄭寶清). When the DPP nominated former Government Information Office minister Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) in October, he was expected to suffer a more miserable defeat against the KMT’s candidate, Legislator John Wu (吳志揚), who is from a powerful local political family. Surprisingly however, Wu, the son of former KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄), only won the election by about 50,000 votes, an embarrassment to the Wu family.
Chiayi Mayor and Vice KMT Chairwoman Huang Min-hui (黃敏惠), who Ma relies on heavily, only defeated DPP legislator-at-large Twu Shiing-jer (涂醒哲), who had no election experience, by just a little over 8,000 votes. In Penghu County, where the KMT has always won, the two parties had a very close battle, and the KMT’s Wang Chien-fa (王乾發) in the end managed the slimmest of victories with less than 600 votes. Even more surprising, the DPP’s Liu Ti-hao (劉櫂豪) received 38.23 percent of the total vote when running for Taitung commissioner four years ago, but this time that figure increased sharply to 47.41 percent.
The election results can be seen as a warning to the KMT. Although the party suffered serious internal splits in several districts such as Hsinchu, Hualien and Kinmen counties, they were not the main cause of the party’s declining vote. The president’s unclear role, ineffective leadership, self-imposed isolation, opaque operations, overlapping decisions, ignorance of public opinion and loose government units are all big problems.
Unexpectedly, Ma appointed former Taipei deputy mayor King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) as KMT secretary-general to further tighten control of the party. Despite the fact that King is good at strategy and propaganda, this will be ineffective without substantial political accomplishments.
King’s appointment also makes us wonder whether Ma will use reform as an excuse to centralize power. That being so, his decision-making body will become smaller and include people of similar backgrounds.
How then can they possibly understand grassroots thinking?
Hawang Shiow-duan is a professor of political science at Soochow University.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
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